Am I crazy?

On Friday I went public.  I posted my blog on Facebook for the entire world to see.  My friends and family have been amazingly supportive.  Thank you to everyone who posted or who sent me a private message of support.  It all means more to me than you could possibly understand.

Have you ever tried to find a therapist? In the past I just picked a name out of the phone book and if they had an opening I went.  Wait, did you just read that, did I just admit to having gone to therapy?  Yes.

In my first marriage my husband cheated on me. It was devastating at the time.  I was young, naïve, and thought we had a fairytale romance. He destroyed that.  I caught him in more lies than I care to recount, but this one time, he fell in love.  Or so he thought.  The other times I caught him cheating he lied his way out of and I believed him (stupid!), anyways, this time he admitted to it, he cheated, he loved her and we were over.  It had been going on for a few months.  I had figured it out in the Spring of 1994, but he finally admitted to it in July of 1994.  Jacob was born January 31, 1994.  I was tested for breast cancer in June 1994.  Good times. When I finally told him there was no more denying it he stayed out all night.  He came back the next day to an empty house because I moved to my parents. He moved her in that night.  That’s exactly how much my son and me meant to him.  (Sorry Jacob if you read this). 

*Fun fact fast forward 16 years my youngest son then dates said woman’s (use that term as loosely as she was back then) daughter – YAY! 

Over the weekend my family helps me move some of my belongings out and we take the car.  It was the only car we had at the time and my parents held the loan on it and they weren’t about to let him have it while I went without a car and had a small child.  A few weeks go by with no word from my husband.  Then he calls and says he wants to see his son.  I bring him down to see him the next day.  He says he has made a terrible mistake and wants us (not me), back.  Stupidly I agree to move back, but he has to go to counseling.  In hindsight he just missed his son, not me, and we should have stayed apart then, but then I wouldn’t have my second son Chad and my life wouldn’t be complete with out him, so there’s that.

I find a therapist in town for myself and do marriage counseling as well.  While the therapy wasn’t bad, it wasn’t great.  I still felt that my husband needed counseling on his own, which he never got.  I needed to know why he cheated. Why I wasn’t enough.  All I managed to get out of therapy was that the therapist thought that my husband was suffering from depression, and was battling through being the sole provider to a wife and son and the responsibilities of paying all the bills himself. Hmmmm ok so you stick your dick in someone else?  What was his excuse before we had a child?  Before we had the house?  Oh wait, he didn’t admit to those.

Anyways over the years I did over the years go back and see this same therapist when things got rough.  Things weren’t always rosey in my first marriage.  We put on a great front though.  More often than not, he did his thing and I did mine.  As time went on we grew further apart, and I gained more weight.  (another side note – My husband likes skinny women so the bigger I got, the further away he went). 

As time went on I started spending time on the internet chatting with people. This filled the emotional connection I was missing at home.  Soon, this wasn’t enough, and I did cheat on my husband.  Not a proud moment in my life but I did it.  Then one day my son’s best friend was killed in a car accident.  September 28, 2007. I had to tell my 13 year old and 11 year old that their best friend had died. It was that day that I realized life was too short to be miserable.  I told my ex that I had cheated. 

We lived together for the next 6 weeks miserably until I filed for divorce because there was no fix.  He didn’t want to fix what he felt I had broken, which is fine.  I had many times before wanted to ask for a divorce but didn’t have the guts.  I filed for divorce in November 2007 after 17 years together, and 15 years of marriage.  He stayed in the same house for the next 6 weeks until our first meeting with our lawyers/hearing date at which time he moved to his moms. December 15, 2007. 

Our divorce was not fun.  It wasn’t amicable.  We did not remain friends.  We did try a few times, but now we can barely speak to each other and that is extremely sad.  I will not air all the dirty laundry between us because that will do nothing but hurt people.  My only wish is that we can eventually get to a place that we can deal with each other without high anxiety.

Now, this blog was actually supposed to be about finding a therapist and I went completely off track.  But I guess I felt I needed to get that all off my chest.  So, I am trying to find a therapist to help me in my weight loss surgery journey.

I asked my PCP for some recommendations and he sent me to this website cvmhp.org.  There was only 1 person that listed that they specialize in eating disorders and she doesn’t take evening appointments.  So I looked for addictions.   Then I decided to just read the bio’s of everyone who listed they were taking new patients.  If I liked their website/bio I sent them an email.

This is what the email said:

“My name is Cora Grandfield and I am seeking a therapist.  I am about to join the Bariatric surgery program at DHMC and part of their program is to have a psychological evaluation and a minimum of two visits by a health care provider. Part of MY goals is to seek out a therapist to visit ongoing to establish a relationship to:

#1 find out why I have let me get to the size I am

#2 work on emotional eating

#3 work on loving myself

#4 work on self control

#5 work on making sure that I make this journey successful

More about me.  I work full-time during the day and part-time nights and weekends.  Rarely during the week. But I will need an evening appointment, as getting time off during the day can be difficult.  Missed time from work affects the pocketbook too much.  I have a few chronic health conditions that weigh heavily on my mind.  I have been taking paxil since 1999.  My family suffers from depression.

Let me know your thoughts.”

I wrote to six people.  I did write to the person who did eating disorders, and she wrote and said that she wasn’t accepting new clients and didn’t do evening appointments.  And one other person wrote to say she didn’t think she would be a good fit for me, but then backtracked and said she would see me.  No one else has written to me.  I don’t want to waste my time and money on a bunch of first visits to find the right therapist. I want to find a good therapist for ME.

I need this surgery to work.  I need to be a success.  And for me to be a success I know I need mental help.  Why is it so hard to find the help you need?